Hector’s hands were knotted on his thighs. The jolt of his last anti-sleep pills, without the calming sedatives to balance them out, crackled through his veins like blood turned to electricity. Corpuscles raced on laser beam tracks, screeching around corners, ricocheting off walls. Colliding in explosions of flame, everywhere throughout him, vehicles piling up…
“I suppose I’ll have to,” Hector breathed, slowly rising.
Eddy rose too. “Again, sorry. Normally our man is pretty punctual. I know this isn’t professional. We’ll throw in a bag of weed for ya, how about that?” Smile.
Hector had never tried that in lieu of sedatives. “Whatever. Thank you. I’ll come back later, then.”
“Good.” Eddy clapped him on the back on the way out.
Outside, Eddy watched the tall man walk away with stiff movements, for a moment disoriented before choosing a direction, buffeted in that second by waves of people like a buoy. “What a burn-out,” Eddy smirked to Mort.
“We have a problem,” said Mortimer Ficklebottom.
The mall building looked like a hangar: a windowless collapsible building, long and high-ceilinged, although there had been no upper story assembled as there had been for the crafts show structure. The lighted interior drew a somnambulistic Hector inside. A bustling interior, crowded with people but more so with color, with items, with many tiny individual things all seeming to scream out for his attention simultaneously. A clamoring pawing at his senses, a cacophony of merchandise.
He made the mistake of paging through an encyclopedia on a counter, and subsequently listened for fifteen minutes as a pleasant but driven ex-teacher described the various sets of encyclopedias she was selling. Hector agreed that they were very impressive, and also that it was important children should have a set in the home and be encouraged to read…but finally managed to get in that he was divorced and had no children. Regrettably, he didn’t add. He loved children. Their innocent enthusiasm was the very stuff of life. But their innocent enthusiasm depressed him. Better it was that he had no children to ache over. He extricated himself at last, eager to return to his spectral anonymity.
Fifteen minutes earlier Noelle Buda had fallen into the same trap, but younger and more energized, climbed to freedom more quickly. The woman let Noelle out of her grip reluctantly. She was zealously committed, as if she alone could save the neglectful masses from their illiteracy. Noelle had moved to a table that displayed cheap jewelry, a mixed and staring audience of eye pins.
She had played a few games half-heartedly, won a poster of the group Flemm which she had left on a table under a food pavilion for some younger girl to find. Riding rides alone had no appeal for her–especially since this carnival employed the practice of incorporating into some rides the dead bodies not claimed by the town morgue after the official waiting period. Two rows of actual human and humanoid skulls, six to either side on poles, flanked the path which led to the Vomit Comet. Purple lights glowed in their sockets now that it was dark. For most this added to the excitement of anticipation. It had no such attraction for Noelle.
Nor did the notion of signing waiver forms for the Vomit Comet, Double Helix and the Puker. Noelle had sought out quieter distractions. The great structure which housed the cattle, not far from the mall, had been smellier inside than she had expected from her visits to sanitized zoos, her only previous encounter with such large animals. Those cows that weren’t standing lay in their own mud-pools of excrement; it caked their tails. They were too close, too–living walls, a few leaning out their dinosaur necks in slow motion to sniff at her. This species of cattle had great bony heads much like that of a hammerhead shark, their white-lashed eyes at the far ends of the hammer. Noelle didn’t stay long.
She found the bumbles and such in a smaller structure, off to one side of the lavatory shed, more relaxing and enjoyable.
In order to qualify for judging, these bumbles had had to be bred, crossbred, mutated within what was considered unprofessional, limited boundaries, though the original species of bumbles was a completely artificially designed one. In corridors of cages were dozens of bumbles, to Noelle’s delight. Huge–a few as big as lambs–or as small as guinea pigs. Most with floppy ears, a few with erect ears. Most black and yellow striped, but some black and tan, or black and white, or all black, or albino. These ghost-like bumbles had pink eyes with red pupils that unsettled Noelle, who preferred the warm darker eyes.
Prize ribbons for the various categories were pinned to the stacked cages. There were other kinds of animals, also; a variety of native aquatic birds, most of which had tiny sharp teeth for the eating of fish and laid black eggs which absorbed the sun’s warmth, very tasty, the feathers of the birds ranging from gray to blue to green, so as to blend in with the water from predators, and maybe from hunters, these water colors having been noted to be on a slight increase in the years since Chooms had invented the gun, the Chooms later having had their knowledge updated by the Earth colonists.
There were some Tikkihotto beetles that tasted to Noelle like salty chicken when cooked, and were in fact the size of chickens, plucking at the insides of their cages. Their chitin armor was white with black spines, their legs were barbed and black. They had three antennae-like ocular organs on either side of their heads, not unlike the tentacled “eyes” of the Tikkihotto. These insects and the humanoid Tikkihottos could see in ways beyond the capacity of humans. Auras, emanations, colors outside the human spectrums. Certain kinds of “dimensionals”–that is, creatures or beings from dimensions or planes other than this one–which were invisible to humans could be seen moving about by the Tikkihottos.
The feelers wavered at Noelle through the cage mesh. What color was her pretty brown skin to them? If she saw this image electronically relayed onto a screen (possible) would she find her visage beautiful or nightmarish? She didn’t care to know what other auras, emanations, colors she secretly possessed. She had trouble enough with the things she already knew about herself.
Now, in the mall, she browsed at a stand rich in tackiness. Toys, t-shirts, souvenirs, gizmos. It could have been a museum exhibit of chintz. In contrast, a few tables opposite displayed crafts made by people at home, or in personal workshops. This was novel and quaint to Noelle; she was intrigued. Wooden plaques and key holders, hand-painted with Welcome Friends, Home Sweet Home, other platitudes, or else empty, waiting to be personalized by an artist in residence behind the table, hopefully but unobtrusively eyeing Noelle. She bought a beautifully scented wooden key holder cut in the shape of a cat, with her name painted on in soft blue while she watched. What would Bonnie say, she wondered uncomfortably? The artist and those others behind their craft tables made her shy. They were older, generally...some Choom, some human, quiet and calm and alien to her. Though she admired their work she couldn’t imagine spending the time and effort to create such things herself. Thus she admired them all the more for their humble, apparently peaceful concerns, as one might admire the simple devotion of monks or nun but still be intimidated–maybe even feel inferior or lacking–in their presence. They were like serene animals, to Noelle, like those lazy-eyed cows she had seen (also a little eerie in their slow motion placidness). Unassuming, closer to nature. But she couldn’t live that way. It would be dull, she was afraid. Unstimulating. Still, the notion was distantly nostalgic, maybe a race memory type of thing, and romantic. Part of her envied their perceived lack of evolution.
Hector also felt uneasy moving in close to particular tables, solidifying to flesh in the gaze of the craft makers, but there were still material things capable of calling him out of his shadows. As much as he eyed the crafts and products, however, he studied the milling people, endless in their diversity, and yet like many, many kinds of insects, all insects in a way.
For one thing, he had never before seen these tight sweat pants with trapdoor rears. Not once. And then suddenly he was surrounded by them, as if overnight teenagers (and older people aspiring to be teenagers) had conspired in an undergro
und complex, toiling long and hard to create them, then emerging today. That abruptly could a new fashion appear, sometimes with no clue to its evolution, and just as abruptly vanish. Material things, but ephemeral.
Distressing to Hector was that there was too little or sometimes no distinction between the current teen fashions and the dress of young children. It used to be that once a fashion was discarded it passed on down to the children, while the teens adopted a new one. Now the fashion occurred simultaneously. Though he saw no open trapdoors among them, he did see girls of nine, ten, twelve wearing those sweat pants. The teens dictated fashion, the children and adults emulated them.
Despite the recurring, more unifying signs of fashion trends, however, there were too many kinds of people from too many origins to keep up with. It was as if the many varied dimensional planes which coexisted simultaneously in the same space had all materialized into view, though Hector knew better, knew that such a revelation would shatter one’s mind.
A cacophony of lives. Even within this dimension, separate dimensions coexisted in endless layers, their beings elbow to elbow with each other but invisible to each other. They were capable of seeing each other if they really looked, their dimensions capable of being touched, entered, explored–though often one ended up wishing they had never entered the world of that other person.
In the physicist’s overview of the universe and its kin, people–ruled by their chemical components–were chemicals, moving in fragile phials, separately enclosed from one another but waiting to crash and interact, either mixing or reacting violently, exploding. Phials spinning in the centrifuge of life, as in some carnival ride.
But were Hector’s fellow humans and humanoids only chemicals, governed by electrochemical programming, “Personality” and “Identity” merely a matter of chemical variations or anomalies, with the extra physical influences of heredity and environment to help shape the self? What could be left, after all that, to call a soul, a spirit?
That had been Hector’s job as a Theta researcher to find out.
That research work and the new perspectives it had lent to his world, when he returned to it, had proved a strain he couldn’t deal with.
Even the new job offer that had come to him from another research group had made his flesh crawl. This group was funded not by the government but by a major corporation, and thus was making great strides, and they had a new idea for a company, a service to the public.
As a Theta researcher Hector had on various planes studied various kinds of trace-energies of “dead” humans and humanoids. In one place, the “dead” were shoulder to shoulder, mostly unmoving, only a few shifting in slow motion, eyes staring, unable to communicate. A vista of these beings, like a sea, so thick that Hector’s team had had to float above them, though this was easy since there was no gravity, and the space suits they wore were a welcome insulation.
In another world–of endless moors of strange translucent gray grass, black cliffs rising in the distance, a world with gravity (though not with breathable atmosphere)–Hector and his comrades had seen only one being, a dark-garbed woman, drifting across the moors far away. They got close enough to yell to her and she stopped and glanced back at them a moment, so she was at least part sentient, but she vanished into a fog which curled up at all times from the rubbery grass. They did find a kind of cottage, later, apparently made from weird colorless materials from this world, and some dark robes inside, but no one showed up…
And then he had met dead people on other planes who were only too capable of communication, only too eager to talk. Chattering, babbling. Hector had spent most his time here, observing…interviewing. The identities of some of his subjects had been investigated and confirmed. He would be happily greeted by some of his subjects when he returned. But they varied in coherence for all their talkativeness. This realm seemed a kind of lunatic asylum for lost, disoriented or waylaid souls.
The burgeoning company had offered Hector a job relaying messages to the addled dead from their living relatives, and from the dead to the living. A desk job, they assured him, no personal excursions; a remote probe could be sent to collect these video impressions.
Hector had declined.
His last investigations had been into a plane much like this last kind, but here the “trace-energies,” whatever they were in a physical or metaphysical sense, were unhappy. Desperately unhappy. Sobbing, groaning, moaning–all at once. Wailing, screaming. Pleading with Hector to take them away. And as if their surroundings weren’t miserable enough, there were things that preyed upon them here…
Hector had been dismissed from his job shortly after these last studies, for “fatigue,” “work-related stress.” He had no idea what he was going to do with the remainder of his life.
His body bumped hard with another’s. Dazedly he said, “Sorry,” though he didn’t know if he were at fault. A few yards beyond he fell into a short line at a Haww candy counter. Haww fudge was a favorite of his. He could see the Haww busy behind the counter, a floating red cone, with a blue ball floating two inches above the cone, rotating, and a second blue ball two inches above that rotating in the other direction. Three limbs were on level with the cone but not physically connected, and there was also a break at every elbow and digit joint. A peaceful race. To be a Haww, just concerned with extruding their delicious candy from the holes at the ends of their claws into intricate, lovely shapes. They only lived to be four or five years old, however. Would Hector rather live a hundred years–two hundred if pollution, ever-new diseases, his fellow beings didn’t get him sooner–and suffer pain, anxiety, anger, depression, stress, when all the bliss and good in his life might possibly be condensed down into four or five years? He thought that he would be too afraid to give up his longevity, pain or no. He rationalized, too, correctly or not, that bliss and calm alone might be too boring, that pain was needed to know pleasure. Still, for their comparative lack of pain the Haww looked awfully, awfully content. This one whistled happily out of the holes in its one unoccupied arm while it bustled.
The pretty black girl ahead of him in line bought an intricately woven flower of candy on a stick, and then Hector bought a few pieces of various kinds of fudge, and a coffee. He drifted on, his flesh heavy, the floating being behind him light and quick.
Not every display in here was a shop. At one table there was a scale model of a house, bubble-like and cute, very affordable (comparatively)…but not so durable or well-made, naturally, for that money, Hector knew. Brochures, pamphlets, a vid screen showing such a house under construction. Another display ahead was one by an organization for animal rights. An animal lover, Hector moved toward it.
A man and woman sat on chairs behind the display chatting, hardly taking him in, giving him his privacy. He liked it that way; if he wanted assistance from people he would ask them for it. Perhaps, sensitive people as they must be, they sensed his desire for invisibility.
There were countless pamphlets representing the work of a variety of groups from the town of Paxton, from elsewhere in the province of East Kagin, from elsewhere in the country of Duplam, elsewhere on the planet Oasis, even one or two from Earth, devoid as it was of most animals except pets. But even pet animals, very often pet animals, had their natural rights horribly abused. In fact, it was the abuse of pet animals Hector was most horrified by, because in the victims he saw his own past pets, and because pet species are generally chosen for that purpose by their very gentleness and capacity for love. To see a photograph of a big-eared tiny beagle lying in a cage, its moist eyes half closed in its resignation to pain, and its flank a black and red raw crust from concentrated radiation burns inflicted to test their independent healing, not only appalled him but filled Hector with a bright hot fury that cut through much of his fog. His mother had owned a plump, loving beagle.
In glossy stills, scrawny watery-eyed, cross-eyed kittens, cute even with spinal cords severed, dragged useless hind legs despite having the tops of their heads uncapped and exposed
, electrodes poking up from their skulls. One yellow cat, shaved and covered with strange wounds, glared at the camera, or maybe it was just his brow lowered over his eyes from those weighty electrodes driven into his head. A “before” photo showed the litter of kittens sleeping together, as yet unmutilated, in a nest of fuzzy, fragile innocence. Hector thought of his boyhood kitten Fluffy, who had loved to ride on his shoulder, up until her death in her teens. An animal loving a human. Humans not loving animals.
Monkeys, goats, other animals subjected to lab experiments. So senseless. The technology was there to outdate such medieval torture! Computer graphics, training films, cadaver dissection, the creation of cultured cells, tissues, even with bogus but realistic pain receptors if need be, all rendered these experiments unnecessary. But it was cheaper to buy the dogs from an animal “shelter” than to culture tissue with nerves, pain receptors. Money mattered more than life. If governments allowed big businesses to pollute and contaminate countless humans and humanoids, how could one realistically expect much to be done about these hidden-away mute prisoners? Well, sometimes governments did make some gestures. Little gestures of mercy could pamper people, distract them from the greater, more elusive evils being done elsewhere...or to them.
A pamphlet told how stubborn cows were unloaded at a stockyard. If a cow were too weak or recalcitrant to move from the truck she might be kicked, beaten with rods, cattle-prodded in the ears, poked in the eyes or vulva or anus. If this were unsuccessful, a rope might be tied around her neck, another to a post, and the truck would move forward. The cow would be dragged from the truck and fall, breaking her legs. There she might lie into evening, lowing in misery in the baking sun without water, savaged by the stockyard dogs. Such a case was presented. A representative from this particular animal rights group had protested at the scene, demanded that the animal be put away. She was scoffed at. The police were called but could do nothing. She gave the cow water but when she returned later it had been removed, out of spite. Finally, that evening, a butcher came and killed the tormented thing.
Everybody Scream! Page 16